The Long Goodbye

Last night I dreamed I was
drinking with Nettelbeck
he’s dead but can still hold his own against
a bottle of tequila

I kept calling him “Mr. Fred”
like the Indian dudes he used to
hang with in southern Oregon

I woke up to a morning threaded thru with
smoke & drizzle
had a bottle of Tecate
instead of a cup of coffee
& eventually made it down to the beach to talk it over
with the dark green shorebreak

When asked of their origins
the Chumash point to the west
out over the Pacific Ocean
as being the home of the First People
a place they call the Land of the Dead
where the Great Spirit lives
in a crystal cave
on the bottom of the sea